an ode

Shannon is putting together a wedding website, and has asked us all to contribute something. here goes:

Will was my first close friend at Pitt. We met, we clicked, and we talked for hours sitting on a really uncomfortable cement bench. Through all the craziness of our first year at college, we managed to stay great, great friends. JP and I even adopted him into our families. If we were sleeping in Plum, Will was sleeping in the guest room, with a giant golder retriever inevitably lying on his bladder. Dinner at my parents' meant Will, JP, and Freya. I remember how touched my mother was when she received a Christmas card from Elyse (who you may know is Jewish!) as thanks for feeding her son.

Poor Will had to suffer through some painful set-ups. I had nothing to do with these, as I didn't know any girls I thought were good enough. But he seemed happy enough, and so I didn't try too hard either.

Now, I have always been friends with more boys than girls. Boys tend to be a lot more accepting in general and like the things that I do. Procrastination, laughing, wearing t-shirts, not wearing makeup...that sort of thing. It's much harder to find girls like that. So when a new girl joins the group, my immediate, unconscious reaction is suspicion. Especially if they join as the significant other of someone who you couldn't bear to see hurt.

The hard part is the balance of happiness gained by said person vs. the chances of them being utterly destroyed by said relationship. You just never know. However, sometimes people come along and you just instantly throw caution to the wind. You can't help but be sucked in by their charms and wiles. Such was the case with Shannon.

How could we not immediately accept Shannon? There has never been another person that has so easily slipped into our group. She may not have gained an immediate love of Pantera, but there were other criteria we were looking for. She cooked us dinner. She bought us underagers booze. She laughed and procrastinated and wore t-shirts. She's incredibly non-judgmental and she loves animals. There was hardly anything else we could've hoped for.

I did once try to build Will a girlfriend out of tinfoil, toothpicks, and a very powerful computer. And you know what? Even with my incredibly picky specifications, she didn't come near to what Shannon is. Plus, she was kind of uncomfortable to cuddle with.